


Great War, Ordinary Foxes

by PseudoFox



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, Anthropomorphic, Awkwardness, Battle, Belgium (Country), Drama, France (Country), Friendship, Furry, Major Original Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Original Character(s), Snark, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:39:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15077330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoFox/pseuds/PseudoFox
Summary: Every generation fights its own battles, mammals trying their best to see that children won't have to face as tough a challenge. Reconciling with his mother after experiencing a wonderful change in his life, Nick Wilde decides to take a deep, complex look into his family history. His great-grandfather, Hastings Wilde, experienced a fascinating life's story that featured twists and turns with influences lasting years later.





	1. Chapter 1

**[Chapter One]**

**One pleasant afternoon in a small house within a working-class neighborhood of Zootopia,**

"You'll never move out of this old house, will you?" Nick Wilde asked, stopping to tuck his shoes underneath the piano table. His quiet tone of voice masked the underlying layer of irritation in the question.

"Never," his mother calmly replied, putting on a light smile. She reached out and gave the younger fox a huge hug.

After patting his mother's back for a few seconds, Nick felt he couldn't help but press the point. "Honestly, as much as I've loved spending more time with you lately, I wouldn't mind if you left this place for good," he commented. He sucked in a little breath. "I seriously wouldn't."

Nick watched as his mother took a few steps away from her. Her pleasant expression remained the same as she stuck out a paw in the air, motioning him closer. He followed the elderly vixen into the adjacent hallway, yet both of them kept silent for a few more seconds.

Nick had felt energized enough to vow to reconcile with his mother. That quickly became more of an ongoing process than a one-time event, but he didn't mind one bit. He resolved to make himself an active presence in her life. He accepted how that meant thinking more and more about the past that he still carried with him.

"Too many complicated memories, I know," his mother finally remarked back. She didn't need to elaborate.

Nick stopped, the younger fox suppressing a groan. He ran a paw upon the various knickknacks stacked on the shelves running along the hallway's walls while he avoided looking at his mother's face. From the nooks and crannies of the old house to the various little spots in front of the neighborhood's nearby stores, the kinds of things that his mother had cherished used to mean little to him as a kit or even as a curious teenager— Nick spending his early years practicing what would become his best hustles. Even after growing up and giving up a life of cons, he still felt deeply alienated.

"Just the idea of asking questions about your family's past? You used to break out in hives, basically, with aches and pains going all over that thick fur of yours," his mother remarked, stopping as she folded her arms against her chest. Her eyes finally met with her son's own big pupils. "Worse than the flu or something like that since it never really got better? Look, I see through you like tissue paper when it comes to these things. And I want to help. We can talk over anything that you want about you and your family's past. Or, sure enough, we can head to the kitchen and go over how I made those cookies. Or both... however you want to do it."

Nick took in every last word of his mother's mini-speech, but didn't want to say anything back at first. Looking backward at all had used to irritate him to no end. He knew that he couldn't change how his very species meant that his neighbors barraged him with everything from crass remarks to frustrating pranks and even outright physical attacks. That fact made him focus his eyes ever forward— Nick always watching out for the next opportunity coming his way.

"Everything's started to change," Nick finally remarked. He stepped a few feet closer to the elderly vixen. "Ever since I met that spirited little bunny? I admit it. It's like taking off a pair of glasses and seeing the world in a kind of... clearer, fresher way." He paused. He suppressed a laugh. "God, I sound like one of those dopey mammals from a late-night romantic 'comedy'—" Nick grinned as he made air quotes. "Don't I?"

"I'm certainly not complaining," the elderly vixen replied with a little chuckle, "I'm surprised. That's all." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I'd just figured you for one dead-set on the huge predators— a tigress or a wolfess, maybe— and not one to flip over the smallest girls around."

"Hey, I heard that!" Nick protested, putting on a melodramatic wave of emotion.

"I'm, well, genuinely happy for you— no matter what you do now." She gestured for Nick to follow along the hallway behind her. "And I can't wait for you to share all of these cookies with your special rabbit friend. In the meantime, was there anything else that you wanted to talk about? Or would you like to head straight over to Leaps' house to get the carrot cake?"

"I actually," Nick began, but he halted mid-sentence. His eyes slid up the nearby wall into a large object positioned right beside his head.

Beneath the glass of the picture frame, the fox's frown looked sharp enough to ax open an entire redwood. His narrow, focused eyes sat below a set of large, bushy eyebrows. Both matched the rest of his facial expression perfectly. A little further down, his paws folded tightly together while his plain yet functional military uniform clung upon his fur. Completing the image, a short, skinny hat stuck to the top of the fox's head while a group of gangling, dying-looking trees stretched out both above and below his firm pose.

Nick had glanced at the aging photograph of his great-grandfather time and time again without taking such an interest in the figure within. Both his mother and her own parents had possessed little in the way of spare funds to buy the comfortable furniture, fancy wallpaper, fresh-tasting water filters, and everything else that their middle-class prey neighbors took for granted. With item after time getting nabbed second-paw through charity-based services, the old photograph's thick glass container and large, ornate frame of genuine silver stood out. It looked like the precious family heirloom that it was.

"Hey! We don't happen to have any more pictures of him, do we?" Nick inquired, scratching his chin. He used the lull in some small talk to run a paw along the edge of the fancy frame. "My great-grandfather?"

His mother's face lit up with pure excitement. "Oh, give me just a moment! I've got so much more that I can show you!"

Looking all too eager to answer just about any questions, the vixen bustled off to rummage around in the cupboard under the living room stairs. She quickly produced a dusty photo album. Full of monochromatic glimpses of a world long past, picture after picture held its own complicated story. She flipped over to the middle of the album and began pointing to mammals long dead— the vixen still wearing an expression that seemed to label them all as old friends that merely stepped out for a vacation or some other temporary absence.

"Mind you," she began, turning to a large picture of a grizzled-looking fox driving a large truck, "I was only a girl when my grandfather told me most of his stories. I'm sure that a lot of things got cleaned up for me as well. Yet I'm still struck by how frenetic life actually became— mammals fighting day after day in what they so foolishly called the 'War to End All Wars'."

"Can I take this one out?" Nick asked, his eyes opening up wide.

"Sure," his mother answered, carefully sliding the picture out of his plastic embrace, "and, look, our local Aldermammal actually wrote the back caption to this one!"

"Hastings Wilde is a native Zootopian of English and Finnish descent who volunteered in winter 1917 to serve with the Zootopian Expeditionary Forces or Z.E.F. Fighting in France during the Hundred Days Offensive of 1918," Nick read, "he participated in numerous battles and received commendations for his bravery. Finally leaving the battlefield due to an injury to his shoulder, he dedicated the rest of his twenties to promoting proper health care for veterans and eventually took this to be a second life's calling. As an advocate for hospice services in particular, he's worked alongside doctors all over Zootopia from Sahara Square to Tundratown. Always and forever, he served others."

"Mammals felt so divided back then, especially with those big predators threatening all of the little prey in those other lands," the vixen chimed in, letting out a long sigh, "but my grandfather was a fox that found it in himself to fight for something better nonetheless. Against those Prussian felines and all their wolves, he stood up for his own diverse group of friends. The war didn't create a lasting peace, of course, but it still meant progress to him."

Nick placed his paw upon his mother's shoulder. As he leaned down and gazed at detail after detail on the picture, he found himself focusing on a set of bullet holes blasted across the truck's headlights. Nick shut his eyes. He could almost hear the rifles firing. Nick rubbed a paw upon the well-worn corner of the photograph. It felt as if he was actually there.

**Around a hundred years earlier, in a part of French territory long turned into a wasteland,**

Hastings Wilde let out a passionate cry as he leveled his rifle. He let out a pair of shots. Two huge dots of solid redness appeared on the thick grey jacket of the tall panther standing across from him.

The fox ducked down behind the grime-coated doors of the nearby truck. He gritted his teeth as its smoke-spouting engine shot disgusting puffs of blackness down onto his head. A group of three pistol shots sounded off above him. He could see yet another farmhouse less than a quarter of a mile away to his right— the entire front side of the building appeared ruined from in some previous battle, with a whole stone wall laying twisted away like the lid peeled off of a huge can.

"Hew!" Hastings screamed out. Another pair of bullets flung through the air— one of them even sailing right beside the fox's ear. He sucked in a deep breath as he thought of how one slight stumble could mean exposing his entire head to the crossfire. "Hew, damn it!"

The fox made out a stoat scurrying around a row of leafless, blackened trees. The quickly-moving tube mammal dodged shot after shot with what looked like little effort. The hours upon hours of complaining that Hastings had heard the past several days, however, made it clear to the fox that it took more effort than could ever be put into words.

"Marcus! Where the hell is Hew?" Hastings spat out.

The disgusted look flashing upon the stoat's face— not that their kind looked particularly handsome, through Hastings eyes, anyways— made it clear that Hew had wandered off someplace. Hastings clutched his rifle tightly against his chest. He had exactly four bullets left, and he had to make those last the next hour if not longer.

Bullets smashed through the truck's headlights— shards of glass scattering upon the gravel road. A agonizing wave went over his senses when it finally hit Hastings that his unit would have to walk the rest of the way to their destination. Defending predators covered area after area with all kinds of deadly weapons. He knew that. They knew that.

A series of loud grunts sounded off from another corner of the farmland. Hastings took in a little breath. He heard loud metallic clanging a second later. The fox risked holding a paw out from behind the broken truck. He heard rapid slashing and immediately braced to throw himself to the side.

A pistol shot fired upon somebody far away seemed like as good a cue as any. The fox locked eyes with Marcus. They both nodded.

Hastings jumped away from the truck and thrust his rifle upwards. Marcus hurled himself over to his side with a tiny pistol drawn. Hastings witnessed in the distance a small ram with a face covered in blood— the prey mammal standing before a pouncing wolf with mouth wide open and claws out. The ram shoved out the modified jackknife that'd gotten fitted onto his hoof. The wolf hurled himself to the side and chomped with his horrible-looking fangs. The predator missed by the ram by mere inches and wound up biting a piece of wood from a half-destroyed door instead.

The fox had mere seconds to react. He did. He aimed his rifle at a button in the middle of the wolf's jacket— his instructor had always told him to 'aim small and miss small, still hitting the overall target'– and fired it. The huge figure bent down for yet another rage-filled attack on the ram. Hastings' shot smashed right through the bottom of the wolf's face.

Though sounding more like the light popping of a cooking cinema treat than the release of any kind of weapon, Marcus' own modified gun managed to fire two shots into the wolf's two knees. The massive solider keeled over against the piles of rotting wood behind him. Yet his still deadly claws swung over and over again in front of him— the big predator striking even as blood poured from what used to be his jaw.

"Christ!" Hew yelled. The ram bobbed around in place— the wolf missing him time and time again— before thrusting a hoof upward.

The jagged edge of the ram's knife buried itself deep in the wolf's chest. Watching every bloody split-second with their full attention, Hastings and Marcus both hurried across the wet grass. The wolf dramatically let out a gurgle-filled moan— his eyes shutting up tight. By the time the fox and stoat had made it to the ram's position, the massive solider was no more.

"Seriously," Hew groaned, stamping the soaking-wet ground in raw frustration, "I had him! I really had him! But— no, then— you had to send this one of the Prussians' clumps of mange into hell before I could!"

"Sweet merciful lamb of God on the cross, help us," Marcus declared, the stoat's thick English accent hiding the words' religious sincerity, "you might think it's jolly good and all to take on the Kaiser's reserves on your own, well? Breaking off while we're marching through the forest, then, and running a farmhouse where four giant wolves have been waiting for any sign of an attack? Bringing your damned 'apparatus'—" The stoat's eyes narrowed as he glared at the blood-coated steel blade fitted around one of Hew's hooves. "To what we knew clear as the King's own crystal would be a gunfight!"

"I was doing my own thing, and I was doing it perfectly!" Hew called out in protest as he waved his limbs. He looked ready to use his jackknife on the stoat's rear end.

"Listen," Marcus began, sliding himself over and leaning upon the farmhouse's ruined door, "we—"

"No! You listen!" Hew brushed his 'apparatus' clean in the wet grass and reached for a handkerchief in the dead wolf's back pocket. "I've heard enough talk of 'hold back', 'stay steady', 'wait a moment', and God-knows whatever else those pathetic little worms we call our generals have said over the years!" He covered his face in the handkerchief before chomping down hard, his teeth grinding into the fine Hungarian fabric. "When your parents commit the so-called crime of selling the wrong dairy to the wrong office and the Kaiserreich burns them alive, maybe!" He ripped the cloth into little pieces. "Maybe then I'll listen to your talk of 'holding back'— hesitating one extra second from ripping the insides out of their imperialist lackeys!"

"Don't you dare pull the family card on me, Hew!" Marcus screamed. He slapped his miniaturized pistol against his chest and narrowed his eyes. "Not when I've had two brothers leave the trenches in stretchers— lungs full of those felines' bloody poisons!"

"Stop. Now." Hastings shot out arms in between both of the mammals. He sucked in a deep breath before pushing them both away from each other.

"I just," Hew began, knowing that the fox had positioned his arm delicately below where his 'apparatus' pointed out in the air, "he was mine, and stealing that kill from me—"

"Now. It's over. Stop." Hastings kept on swinging his arms out. Finally, with something like a full meter in between the fox's compatriots, their faces shifted from anger-soaked frowns to flat expressions of resigned frustration. "Over and done with."

"What now, Haas?" the ram asked, using a Dutch-inflected shortening of his name that the fox didn't mind.

"We're still going 'by the book'," the fox said, starting to step away from the farmlands, "and going over to where Johnathan's reconnaissance unit is. Heading off to the edge of France? Yes, that's what Teddy had gotten ordered to do."

"Before that sniper took him out with the other half of our squad," Marcus said, regretful anger still burning inside of him.

"I feel like we owe it to Teddy," Hastings concluded, "and we can't take this truck anywhere— well, it looks like we're walking."

"As you wish, Haas," the ram calmly responded.

Hastings gestured over at Marcus and both mammals made an about-face. They stepped off away from the farmhouse with firm expressions across their faces. Hew paused for a moment, but he soon joined the fox's side as all three soldiers traveled along the gravel road. It headed ominously back into the nearby woods, but they marched on just the same.

The fox thought over the past several days's events. If literally seeing chunks of his commanding officer's skull slide down the bear's cheeks onto the floor of a burning building hadn't killed his resolve, then nothing likely ever wound. The fox felt prepared to take on legion after legion of howling canines or rampaging felines with every last firearm that he could scrounge— taking out as many as the mammals back in Zootopia needed him to face before the Kaiser finally submitted.

At the same time, though, even mere talk about the chemical weapons used by the enemy— and, idiotically enough, in scattered instances by members of his own allied side— caused the fox's insides to quiver with fear. He couldn't show it. Yet that didn't change how fighting an invisible enemy scared him to his very bones. The higher-ups had ordered Teddy's unit to head where a huge amount of poison gas once descended upon the battered land— huge columns of mammals dying during those bad old days in the trenches. 

Hastings despised the notion of heading into that cursed ground. He had, nonetheless, no real choice. Teddy had accepted those orders. The bear was dead, and only his little group of three remained. Miles around them, mammal after mammal charged into enemy territory in order to push an advance finally changing the tide of the war. They were one cog in that immense machine. They had to proceed.

The soldiers remained dutifully cautious as they marched along the gravel road— the three compatriots moving further and further into occupied French territory. Slinking behind tree after tree every few seconds, the stoat's brilliant eyes spotted no sign of additional resistance. The fox's equally talented ears sensed little sound other than the far distant blast of occasional artillery fire and the highly close buzzing of the occasional insect. The ram, for his part, remained uncharacteristically silent as he stepped directly behind the fox. His modified jackknife having been tucked well away, the ram simply held his limbs together against his simple-looking jacket of dark blue.

They made it across a 's'-shaped curve into an immense swath of oak trees. The thick greenery valiantly struggled to avoid joining its compatriots off west in blackened death. Still, branch after branch represented possible danger. Hastings held up a paw in the air. As if on cue, the sounds of frustrated bickering burst out from the edge of the horizon. Marcus sucked in a deep breath before standing directly in front of the fox's position.

"Haas?" the ram asked, moving a few feet in front of his two compatriots, "I can barely tell much of anything. Can you hear—"

"Not yet," Hastings calmly replied.

His eyes narrowing, the fox hoisted his Lee-Enfield a bit higher against his chest. A few seconds of utter silence passed among the three soldiers. The faint bickering sounds from the far distance quieted down. The fox leaned up against a nearby tree and cupped a paw to his right ear. Everything remained totally quiet.

After a few more seconds of listening, a bit of hopefulness flashed across the fox's face. He stood up straight and went back to walking on along the gravel road. His compatriots followed him.

"Not... yet," Marcus murmured, the stoat brushing bits of dust and leaves off of his own small tan uniform.

"My Camelot-Delvigne and I," Hew declared with confidence, holding up a shiny revolver in front of his eager-looking face, "are ready for anything, Haas."

The stoat looked on with a pang of jealously. Marcus' own miniaturized Webley-Mars had over two decades of youth in comparison, but the semi-automatic's frustrating recoil and overly noticeable muzzle flash marked it as a lesser to the camels' sturdy weapon. It hurt even worse that the ram carried plenty of ammunition. The odds of one of the Prussian felines or their wolf counterparts possessing a small-enough item that Marcus could appropriate to use against them was, of course, astronomical.

Hastings' mind flashed back several weeks as well. The shortening 'Haas'— which rapidly evolved from the initial 'Hast'— ironically referred on the continent to hares and rabbits. Hastings had found it funny for quite a while. That'd stopped when he started to take foreign languages more seriously in general— picking up more and more pieces as his unit advanced.

The crisp, sharp inflection of the felines coupled with the loud yet guttural tone of the wolves made the fox's adversaries sound quite distinct. The latter's howls in particular were a dead giveaway, and the big predators let those out surprisingly often. However, the disparate species that made up the Central Powers' minor allies— including a surprisingly large amount of foxes, though their feline masters generally misused them as mere manual labor— complicated matters. The Zootopian Expeditionary Force, on the other paw, jumbled things into a complete mess. The rainbow-like coalition of widely varying species lapsed frequently into their mother tongues, which sounded far unlike the colloquial Zootopian that they'd spoken in basic training and elsewhere.

The three soldiers came around a bend over to a pocket of thick bushes. A bit of chattering noises sounded off far ahead once again. The fox gestured at the ground before stepping directly inside the prickly branches. Trying his best not to let the numerous stinging sensations get to him, the fox used the concealment to prick his ears up in full attention.

"Any clue at all," Marcus murmured, the stoat following halfway behind his compatriot, "of whatever's behind that bloody husk that used to be a general store—"

"Bunnies," the fox suddenly declared.

"What?" Marcus asked in a flat voice.

"Soft yet quick, with a scribbling sensation behind the words getting rushed out?" Hastings asked back, pausing to hold up his arms. After a second's pause to gather his strength, he kicked against the ground and leapt clean out of the patch of bushes. "There's no way I'm wrong." 

The stoat stared out into the distance. The former general store stood amidst clump after clump of misshapen stone on its adjacent street. Were it not for the telltale advertisements decorating inch after inch of the building's brick walls— the bright-colored pictures appearing oddly pretty, even with the numerous bullet holes crisscrossing them— the place would have looked like the opening to a quarry. After the stoat's eyes focused a bit, he spotted little glimpses of tall ears that stuck out behind various mounds of stone.

"So, we keep going?" the ram interjected from way behind his two compatriots. He looked a shade disappointed— suddenly not having an opportunity to either shoot or stab anyone for a while. "I'm beyond surprised at there being even more civilians still around."

"What if they're soldiers as well?" Marcus asked, scratching his chin.

"Fighting... bunnies? A jumpy Commander Cottontail leading a bunch of fluffy clumps holding toothpick-like bayonets?" The ram let out a hearty laugh, slapping a knee.

Marcus merely stared back in sheer frustration. He finally stood up tall and pointed an accusing paw into the air. "For all of your jabbering about size, Hew," Marcus began, "the Prussians have constantly fell victim to—"

"Come on," Hastings simply remarked, putting on an authoritative tone of voice.

The fox resumed his marching. It took only a matter of seconds for the other two soldiers to join him back on the gravel road. All three soldiers listened as intently as they could for another sound.

The half-ruined building slipped from the edge of the horizon to the middle of their sights, sitting straight ahead. Still, the three soldiers made out little in the way of movement. They kept on marching silently. None of them felt interested in eagerly waving and yelling out an anxious greeting— acting as if they'd come up to a group of friends on a beachfront holiday.

It was war. They all felt immensely tired. They'd lost several friends— including their beloved commanding officer— and had only a general inkling of where to proceed. As far as he was concerned, Hastings thought, he'd start waving and yelling when the Kaiser finally signed a surrender. The fox was, however, willing and able enough to raise a paw and signal peaceful intentions.

**[End of Chapter One]**


	2. Chapter 2

**[Chapter Two]**

**A few seconds later while the soldiers kept marching,**

"Hold on, if you please!"

The voice appeared to pop up out of nowhere. Standing just a few yards from the former general store, the three compatriots all looked at each other. Hastings made a motion to keep one's arms firmly against one's sides. Both Hew and Marcus duly obeyed.

"Who is it?" the fox asked, putting a burst of volume in his voice.

"I apologize, good chap, for the excessive act of rudeness that is answering a question with another question. Yet I simply have to know: who's your commanding officer? What company are you in?"

The fox, ram, and stoat all watched as a rabbit covered in striking black stripes hurled himself out of a wooden cart on the side of the road– the prey mammal having been essentially invisible within the rotting, dust-coated hunk of wood. The bunny struck a militant pose. The stars and stripes on the rabbit's uniform conveyed some kind of status that the other mammals couldn't quite make out. However, the bite and slash marks going down the bunny's arms as well as up his ears showed a raw determination that matched the focused expression on the prey mammal's face.

Tear after tear coupled with faded spots on the rabbit's old clothes revealed jagged patches of his otherwise vibrant-looking grey fur that gave way to a sickly yellow. The realization struck the fox to his core, hitting like the force from a punch. Despite all odds against the Kasierreich's chemical legions, the bunny had lived to fight on.

"Unfortunately, good sir," Marcus interjected, the stoat clearly trying to place the rabbit's particular blend of accents, "the enemy decapitated our unit just a few days ago. Camped out in the second floor of this cottage at the side of a church, a sniper took out both our Major and our Lieutenant before a lucky shot started a fire. That quickly took the lives of our two remaining best mammals. We're all that's left."

"My condolences," the rabbit declared in a solumn voice.

"We met some mammals of the Belgian resistance, of which Hew Ovis here is a part," Hastings began, pointing to his sheep companion before stepping closer to the bunny's position, "while advancing as a part of the 369th Infantry— "

"The predator force!" The bunny's face lit up with excitement. He clasped his paws together as he locked eyes with the fox. "As the Zootopians put it, the 'Terrorizers from Tundratown' and the 'Slashers from Sahara Square'! Yes, those brave mammals of pointed claw and jagged fangs who've decided to turn against their instincts and fight alongside us prey! Liberating lands fromthe Boche! Your reputation, it's jolly good to say, has preceded you!"

"Very well then," Hastings said. While he felt uncertain of what to say, the fox thought, he absolutely preferred the rabbit's combination of thick condescension with joyful appreciation and possible respect over the outright hatred that he'd suffered through from other officers anytime.

"After the felines charred those good mammals' remains and we barely escaped alive," the ram interjected, grimacing as he recounted the horrible details, "we decided to let the cottage burn to pieces. They'll probably never get a proper burial— God knows that we hate leaving them behind even in death, honestly— but their last wishes were for us to keep moving."

"Hastings Wilde here, well," the stoat added, leaning up to the side of his companion, "he's not an officer. However, we had heard from the Major that 'with absolute certainty'— quoting the bear word for word— he planned to get our fox as promoted as possible. So, well, Hastings has essentially led our decapitated unit since then."

"Marcus Mustela and I, along with our ram companion, have been proceeding based on what the Major had said were his last orders," Hastings went on, scratching across his neck. It still felt agonizingly depressing to speak about Teddy— a big-hearted bear that'd brought the fox to tears of laughter from various saucy stories— in the past tense. "Moving through French territory to Montfaucon-d'Argonne before a rendezvous with—"

"I'm afraid that I'm going to have to stop you right there, good chap," the bunny declared. He raised his voice to a belting sound as he gestured over to the former grocery store. "Whatever you've been and wherever you've planned on going, you're in His Majesty's Fourth Army now."

"As you wish," Hastings replied. He felt little desire to fight the mammals on his own general side, let alone an officer that had survived in the trenches despite the chemical gases wandering above. Besides, the fox thought, he felt more comfortable being in the loop with the regular chain of command.

"If it makes you feel any better, two points! First, we're eventually headed to the general area that you just mentioned! Second, and far more importantly, I'm sure that the absolute last dying wish of your dearest friends was to kill as many of those damned Boche as you possibly could!" The bunny turned away from the three soldiers for a second, though triumphantly raising an arm into the air.

Hastings heard a "damn right" from Hew and a "bloody right" from Marcus. The fox kept his mouth shut. He listened to the bunny let out a loud whistle. 

"And Colonel James Savage is going to give you that opportunity, come hell or high water!"

Thick crowds of rifle-toting rabbits hurled themselves out from behind various places into the middle of the gravel road. The sudden swarming reminded Hastings of angry bees hurling themselves downward at unsuspecting swipers of their honey. Far from stopping to marvel at the sight of an allied fox in their midst, the professionals took their commanding officer's signal as a sign to get back to business. Bunnies tossed small crates of supplies among themselves while several of them discussed cleaning their weapons. A few of the soldiers worked to wash and dry their spare uniforms, various clumps of former wooden fence having gotten flattened into rainwater-soaked impromptu pools.

Hastings held his tongue. On the one paw, they all looked professional enough. On the other paw, Hew's crack about rabbit rifles featuring bayonets akin to toothpicks still felt apt. Though understandable enough due to the dangling supply lines that plagued some of the allies, it additionally worried the fox that around half of the bunnies had only a pistol to fight with. Beyond that, Hastings had a knack for detecting the raw instinct for battle hidden behind mammal's eyes— not even having to stare at their faces for more than a few seconds. The fox estimated that around a third of the bunnies possessed that spark. Most of them seemed determined yet inexperienced— going through the motions of being a solider more than anything.

"I've got all these brilliant fellows to thank for breaking through Prussian lines, I must say," Marcus remarked, letting himself smile.

"After spending months upon months in and out of trenches before wandering all about the Argonne forest, well," Savage said, "our own group— sliced off from the core of the army— has been more than eager to press on."

"That's great to hear," Hastings said. The sincerity in his voice didn't change his apprehension— the fox appreciating the bunnies' courage while dreading what likely came next.

"As much as I'd like to say that I know this territory like the back of my hoof," Hew began, letting out a little sigh, "I'd like to ask up front. Where exactly are we, right now?"

"And, more importantly," Hastings interjected, "we still don't know this: where are we going?"

"As a shameless anti-segregationist, I'm afraid that I've made himself giddy at just the thought of having more species in our own offensive," Savage replied. He let out a little sigh, still smiling, as he pressed a paw upon the fox's midriff. "Now, then, to the task at paw!" He glanced over at the ram for a second. "And at hoof!"

The bunny officer marched over to an impromptu side entrance into the former general store. Hastings, Hew, and Marcus duly followed. Two of those three had to duck to in order to fit themselves into the blown-out hole in the brick wall. They all came upon a clogged-looking command center. Rabbits clutching bits and pieces of reports scurried about every which way and tried their best to avoid the strange species that had just stepped in. Various maps stretched across a long wooden table in the center of what had been the store's employee room. Neatly arranged stacks of ammunition on the wall shelves sat alongside extra cans of various foodstuffs. Every spare spot against the wall seemed to have had a bunch of weapons carefully arranged up against it, the arms delicately held in place by thick spools of twine.

"Eyes on the central map, please," Savage commanded. The three compatriots duly obeyed. "Now, then, we're holed up here in a rural village of northeastern France, sitting only a short distance below the border with Belgium. The Boche control a vitally important railway hub in the nearby town of Purrdun." The rabbit's paws made a little oval shape upon the massive map. "Destroying or, ideally, capturing that hub means crippling the transportation network that they've so successful relied on for years and years. The entire surrounding territory will see the Boche scrambling for a solution while our allies press on with their advance. The higher-ups have taken to calling this the 'Mouse-Argonne Campaign' lately."

"Are we heading directly into the city?" Hastings asked. Despite the pressures put upon the enemy's forces, he knew that frontal assaults against a group of dug-in mammals never worked out that well for the attacks. "Or is something else going on?"

"The several dozen of us have an important task within the overall battle," Savage replied. He reached over for a smaller map with a spaghetti-like swirl of minute streets and small rivers. "There, in the northwestern fringe of Purrun on the edge of this tributary, is a partially isolated community with its own gang of Boche running about everywhere. It wouldn't have much importance otherwise, but there's a train station there of surprising note given its ability to possibly reroute traffic away from the main lines."

"In other words, taking the little community on the edge of the city is one of the keys to taking over the whole thing," Marcus said.

"Our chaps have indeed dubbed it 'edge city'. The area's really only the size of a classic kind of medieval hamlet, but if we capture the area, hold it until relieved, and then push a bit eastward, well," Savage continued, "that makes what the bulk the Zootopian forces due south of us quite a bit easier." He clasped his paws together. "And not only do I expect we'll have a jolly good time sending as much of the Boche to hell as we can, but I'm pleased to say that this'll have major implications for once. Quite a change from all of the mindless running around in the forests over the past couple years— not to mention those despicable trenches! Thank the Lord for you Zootopians coming in!"

Hastings merely nodded, resisting the urge to say a "you're welcome." He found himself, along with his two companions, pushed away from the map-covered tablet and out into the countryside yet again. The fox glanced all around him. Groups of rabbits had lined up in perfectly ordered fashion upon the gravel road. An aura of sheer determination seemed to shine from all of their furry bodies.

"Haas," the ram began, "is what the officer described actually about to happen right now? Right this very second?"

"It's a 'yes' and a 'yes'!" Savage cried out from the far distance. He waved a sword in the air. The rows and rows of rabbits began to march.

"Hello, I'm Corporal Leaps," a tall hare with glistening white fur said, hopping up to Hastings' side.

"Hello," both fox, ram, and stoat replied at once, their voices blurring. None of them felt inclined to put any enthusiasm in their greeting— even if they'd technically gotten absorbed into the other army and tasked with something genuinely important, it simply didn't come to them.

"I'm here to guide you through the order of battle, and I'm sticking around to the very end, of course," Leaps continued, seeming somewhat taken aback by the three mammals' auditory unity. The spark of nervous insecurity in his voice made it clear that he'd only gotten recently promoted from a lower rank. "All of us against all of them, naturally."

"Naturally," Hastings and his two compatriots repeated, again the three mammals speaking at once.

"As far as the details go, one moment," Leaps said. He picked out a small notecard from a side pocket. "as your Corporal, I'm leading an initial penetration of the residential areas of the northwest."

"As you wish, then," the ram remarked, looking a bit irritated. He shared his fellow prey mammals' desire to quickly get back to actual fighting. Yet, like both Hastings and Marcus, he additionally felt wary about getting bossed about without proper context. "We're ready." He slipped a hoof into his jacket, going for his revolver.

"Two units," the hare went on, gesturing at the notecard, "comprised of the four of us here plus a team of six rabbits, have the task of claiming a group of farmhouses at the opening of 'edge city'."

"Lord help us, more bloody farmhouses," Marcus muttered, though he continued to march.

"Wait," Hastings interjected, pointing at the notecard's little drawings, "this part of the town has not just one but three machine gun nests?"

"It's be suicide," the hare answered, "if we hadn't gotten the news from a group of sheep finally kicked out of the edge city that the felines are badly lacking in ammunition. Given the pressures at the southern areas of Purrdun, they overheard, two of the three gunners only have enough to fire for about half a minute."

"It's possible to have a brutal and nightmarish half a minute mean everything, Corporal," Hastings commented. He reckoned it'd taken the panther with a sniper rifle ten seconds less than that to change his own unit's lives forever.

"What about the last one? The third gunner with plenty to fire with?" Hew asked.

"The two facing our way won't last very long. I'm sure of it. The other one? He would be a problem. However, that particular wolf has decided to set himself up in a shack pointed over ninety degrees in the wrong direction, acting as if he'd expected to be attacked by invaders from straight south instead of over westward from the allied lines." For whatever the faults he had, the hare expressed a willingness to get intellectually challenged and explain himself. He managed to put on a smile of expectant optimism as well in response to the glances from the ram and the stoat. "Typical Boche 'tactical wisdom', am I right?"

"Helpful stupidity aside, though," Hastings remarked, "there are such things as screwdrivers. With a little force– "

"Don't worry! We'll get them all," declared a pair of short, stout rabbits from the row in front of the stoat. They waved their pistols in the air. "It's just a matter of how many Boche you can take down before they finally throw in the sponge!"

"Four notches on mine so far!" The slightly smaller of the bunnies wiggled a paw upon the corner of his pistol.

"I'll beat you yet," the other one remarked, chuckling loudly.

"I can't help thinking that a lot of these prey got deployed directly to the legendary trenches, doing nothing for months upon months except take up space there as the battle lines barely moved. It's only at this bloody moment they get a taste of what 'combat' means," Marcus muttered, looking up at Hastings, "and it's intoxication."

"Let's hope the Mouse-Argonne Campaign treats us all well," the fox replied, his voice having raised a bit.

"Hew?" Marcus asked.

"Yes?" the ram replied. Both mammals looked tired of marching. Hastings appeared ready for a nap as well. Still, the whole group of allied soldiers apparently still had a ways to go before they reached the place dubbed 'edge city'.

"Why is it labeled 'mouse', specifically," the stoat wondered aloud, "when there's... I mean, well, we've not seen any of that species around in ages. Does the name come from a certain river? Or an administration region named after the rodents?"

"I," the ram began. A pale color went over his entire face. "I really have no damned idea. Some mammal might have simply picked the name at random."

"That feels like a metaphor for so much of this war, doesn't it?" Hastings remarked to nobody in particular.

With Savage gesturing something far off in the distance, the rows upon rows of soldiers slowly broke up. Gravel roads turned paved roads of simple grey asphalt. The ending rows that included Hastings, Hew, and Marcus remained personally directed by Savage's own enthusiastic commands. However, the time eventually came for every particular unit to separate out and focus on their own tasks. 

"God save the King! And God bless us all!" Savage called out. For his size, the bunny possessed a surprisingly booming voice when he needed to use it.

The crowd of remaining rabbits cheered. Stepping out just a little bit out of the group into the adjacent grass, the three compatriots remained silent. Leaps, hopping in front of them, gestured for every mammal in his own unit to motion down a side road. Hastings, Hew, and Marcus duly obeyed. It didn't take long for Leaps' unit to come upon a babbling creek and a thick group of tall trees.

"Right over here, mammals," Leaps declared. He motioned the crowd of rabbits beside him to lean down and cautiously hop into place. Leaps proceeded ahead of them, moving from one particularly short tree to another.

Though beyond tired of ducking and weaving, Hastings, Hew, and Marcus proceeded to carefully follow the bunnies. Only a few minutes passed before all of the mammals came to the edge of a small river. A wide field with nothing more than various patches of mud and jagged clumps of rocks had opened up. In the distance beyond that, the soldiers spotted a cluster of houses.

"I get the feeling that one of our thirty-second wolves are here," Hastings remarked. He looked to Leaps at his side, the hare carefully positioning a rifle upon a heavy tree branch.

"Indeed."

Marcus wiggled over in front of Leaps' spot, the stoat almost exposing himself. He focused his eyes. "I see a short wolf behind a shiny black monstrosity— seeming incredibly bored— alongside a tall panther. The Prussian's face looks filled with rage, but the swatting paws mean that it's directed at a bunch of nearby insects. Two Mousers sit against a nearby wall, the rifles actually looking rather old. That's all that I can spot right here."

"Can't quite get over the irony that the tube in our unit is the 'sight guy', while the sheep is the 'close quarter combat guy', damn," one of the bunnies remarked. Though the flat tone of voice showed how the comment wasn't at all meant as a joke, a few of the other rabbits chuckled.

Neither Hastings nor his two companions cared. They knew that such comments helped with pre-battle nervousness. The twitching noses that the fox spotted on bunny after bunny showed that the small prey mammals had quite a lot of that to work out.

"With that visual confirmation," Leaps said, bringing things back to the professional side as he swung himself over to the stoat's spot, "we know that the remaining four Boche in this particular area— likely all felines— are holed up inside of those farmhouses themselves. None of the windows face in our direction, as our intelligence had stated. Unfortunately, the existence of this muddy field between the forest and the farmhouses didn't come up in what the sheep had said."

"Just fifteen meters or fifteen yards, whatever it winds up being, and it's basically nothing," Hastings commented, sucking in a deep breath, "unless you've got to get across it."

"Which means the bloody patch of land might as well be all the width of Christendom," Marcus finished.

"I can see it now. They're not even standing next to their rifles, let alone having them aimed and ready to fire," Hew observed, moving to Marcus' side, "it's ludicrous. We'd already have killed them if it weren't for that machine gun and this wide open space."

"We're obviously not all going to rush out at once and get mowed down, mammals," Leaps declared, "nor can we simply stay here. We need to proceed otherwise." He straightened himself. His standard issue Webley revolver brushed up against his face as he solemnly met the eyes of the other soldiers around him. "We need a careful, coordinated plan."

"Hastings?" Marcus asked. The ram and stoat both wandered backwards a bit to where the fox stood, both of Hastings arms braced against a gigantic trunk. "Given how great of a shot you bloody well are, is there any chance that you could snipe the gunner from the edge of the field? Using that big rifle of yours?"

The label 'big' was always in the eye of the beholder, the fox thought, like so many things. The armaments that ferrets, hares, minks, rabbits, stoats, weasels, and other mammals of that size carried constantly made Hastings think of toys rather than the means to kill someone. He might even be able to snap the pistol Marcus had in two— acting like a kit accidentally breaking apart an elementary school pencil.

The fox duly hoisted his Lee-Enfield into the air. He stepped forwards, his paws gently slipping in and out of the babbling brook, and gritted his teeth. He came to a pair of oak trees separating the greenery-filled area from the mud and rock choked field. He sucked in a deep breath and aimed carefully with the rifle.

"No," the fox declared, his voice soaked with finality.

"Damn," the Corporal remarked, showing a shade of sudden gruffness to his voice.

"Not from this distance. I need to be about halfway closer."

"Listen to me. I think we have only one reasonable option." Leaps held his revolver even higher— pointing it right at the sky— as he gestured with his other paw. "It looks as if we'll need to break up into quickly moving teams of two."

"Understood, sir," replied a bunch of the rabbits, popping their heads out of their hiding places in the forest.

"One team will position themselves at the very edge of the woods to establish covering fire," Leaps went on, hopping to where Hew and Marcus stood, "while two teams of two run as fast as they can to those largest of the rocky clumps in the north third and middle third sections of the field. Short as they are, indeed, those thick-looking stones will still provide some protection. The two teams will fire off as much as they can from their pistols as soon as possible."

"Where's the killing blow going to come from, Corporal?" Hastings asked, a grim expression carved across his entire face.

"Us, my good fox," the hare declared. He tapped his revolver against Hastings' rifle, the former being dwarfed by the latter to a comical degree. "We'll come out of the prickly bushes from the south third of the field's edge, dash over to the muddy mound that you see there, and hurl ourselves into the air to fire those most fateful shots. Mud offers absolutely no cover, of course, and we'll have to do our utmost to work with precision and speed."

"May I be brutally honest, Corporal?"

The hare and fox locked eyes with each other. Neither of them said a word or even breathed for several anxious seconds. Finally, Leaps slowly but surely nodded.

"The most likely outcome of that plan," the fox began, "is that Hew and Marcus fire away from those trees without hitting anything, first, and then, second, your bunnies dash out only to get mowed down before they even make it to those godforsaken rocks. The machine gunner will have fifteen seconds worth of bullets left, and he'll use those upon us both, third, when he notices us shooting at him from the muddy pool a little bit south. I'll probably manage to take out both the gunner and his insect-covered feline friend, sure, but I expect we'll be grazed at the very least. The remaining Prussians currently licking themselves clean or goodness knows what else inside those farmhouses will then come out with their Mausers and cut us down."

"Plausibe!" Leaps called out. He scratched all around his face and chin with those huge footpaws of his. "However, you're forgetting one important thing. Something that's rather a surprise to me, you being a fox and all."

"What?" Hastings asked.

"I'll remind you, sure, but you should only need to hear it once. The fact is: us prey mammals of the fluffy bottom sort," Leaps declared, grinning from cheek to cheek, "are about fast as actual bullets when we need to be."

The time had come to make a decision. The coalition of prey mammals looked ready to strike at any moment. Hew in particular had a face glowing like a grand-size light-bulb at the chance of shooting feline after feline. The fox and stoat remained the only ones still clinging to place inside of the wooden area. They glanced at each other. They both nodded.

"Just give us the go ahead, Haas," the ram interjected, holding up his revolver while twisting his side. It showed off yet another pistol, likely slid into place by one of the many rabbits about to take their position. "It's all up to you."

Hastings' mind racked with possibilities. The fox had never seen rabbits— who looked more adorable, cuddly, soft, and even scratch-worthy than anything apt to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy— in action before. He even wondered if he could knock one of them out by accidentally stepping on the little mammal. Still, Hastings didn't see a valid option other than trusting them.

At any rate, the heavy rifle in his paws seemed to shoot pulses of determination through Hastings' insides. He thought back to the leader of his little unit— the poor bear's head blasted into pieces like a young kit stomping a shelled nut open— and vowed to wipe out every last one of the enemy as he could while he still had fight left in him. That'd make the late Major smile from wherever he'd wound up.

"Let's go, Corporal," the fox declared. His eyes narrowed as they met the hare's own gaze.

"Come on, mammals!" Leaps shouted, jumping straight upward.

"Getting into position, sir!" The group of rabbits scurried about into various spots at the end of the wooden area. The fox watched for a moment before following right behind the hare. His ram and stoat companions sped off in different directions.

It only took a matter of seconds before the soldiers came upon the patch of muddy flatness— the stretch of land appearing as ominous as ever. At its other end, the big predators still remained idle beside their carefully poised machine gun. The fox sucked in a big breath and hoisted his rifle by his shoulder, trying to get into the best carry-and-run position.

"On three!" Leaps commanded. His little body seemed to swell as he braced himself directly in front of the fox's body, the hare's ears rubbing against the bigger mammal's chest. "One!" Everybody looked as ready as they'd ever be. "Two!" By instinct, the fox's mouth slid open, baring his teeth with a low growl. "Three!"

The eight charging mammals sped onto the open field. Through the fox's eyes, the rabbits to his side flung through the air like bolts of fuzzy lightning. They all made it to the various clumps of stone that they'd all spotted, and pistols hurled upwards as shots rang out from behind the rocky cover. The fox heard the bullets from the ram and stoat behind him firing past his body.

On the one paw, the ferocity and speed of the charge had caught the defending predators totally by surprise— the suddenness even causing one of them to trip on some object lodged underneath the deadly machine gun. The dazed-looking wolf with a long limb desperately fumbling for the trigger only managed to fire until after the attackers had gotten the cover that they desperately sought. He twisted around his device and fired— going for rock-protected pair of bunnies after rock-protected pair of bunnies— to no avail. The panther beside the wolf had ducked far down, and it took too many precious seconds for the feline to fumble for his own rifle. They swung off from their spot leaned against the farmhouse and onto the top of the nearby fence, exposing whomever managed to grab them to even more fire from the rabbits.

On the other paw, however, not a single one of the bullets that the various prey mammals and their two allied companions had shot out managed to hit the defenders. The attacking mammals kept on firing anyway. The fox came up to the muddy spot that signified his own moment of truth. He tossed his body to the ground, twirled it forwards as gunfire rattled off above him, and suddenly shoved himself straight upwards. He braced his rifle and fired.

The bullet sailed far to the side of the enemy soldiers— knocking a flowerpot off of the farmhouse window beside the big predators. Hastings had attracted the two mammals' full attention as well. The machine gunner kept on firing upon the stone-covered rabbits. Yet the wolf's panther comrade locked eyes with Hastings, and the feline had the free paws to do something about the fox.

Knowing that he had only three bullets left, the fox fired again. That shot crumbled into a patch of mud right below the farmhouse's side door. Hastings watched, to his horror, as the wasted time let the still unhurt panther grab one of the Mousers leaning against the outdoor wall and begin to aim the weapon. The barrel pointed right at the fox's head.

Hastings felt his hare companion wigging about in front of him. The smaller mammal willingly positioned himself as a fuzzy shield— trying hard, although failing, to establish an effective covering fire. Still, all of the prey mammals, Leaps included, might as well have been setting off harmless fireworks for all of their lack of both aiming skills and magazine strength. Hastings' ram and stoat companions had the ability to do much better, but they remained simply out of effective range.

The fox flinched as the panther across from him managed to fire directly at him. Hastings sensed a grazing blow against his shoulder. Despite everything, the fox managed to focus his own rifle right at the middle of the machine gunner's bulky frame. He could count on somebody else to take out the panther. He had to do his job. He fired twice.

A clump of torn flesh and thick globs of blood blasted off of the arm of the wolf behind the machine gun. The predator let out a terrified scream. The deadly device haphazardly tossed back and forth, firing at random, before its ammunition run dry. He cradled his injured arm while falling backwards, blood starting to pour out like water from a hose. The panther beside the wolf tried to fire again, but the feline's rifle appeared to jam.

The fox had no time to celebrate. His rabbit allies running out of ammunition themselves, he braced his empty rifle above his head like a club and charged for the farmhouse. Letting out a passionate cry, he heard his rabbit companions bouncing about all around him as well. Leaps, for his part, flung up to the edge of the fence beside the farmhouse and kicked the enemy soldiers' spare Mousers away.

Checking himself out of the battle, the injured wolf pressed his still bleeding arm against his face and lied flat down upon the muddy ground. His pale features made it clear that he was going into shock. The rage-filled panther, however, managed to quickly fix his rifle before firing off as many shots as he could.

At the close range, though, the big predator simply couldn't move fast enough. A circle of four rabbits bounced about around his legs. The huge mammal aimed at various clumps of white fur only to actually fire at empty mud. One of the bunnies smacked his knees together with full force. Another jumped upon his back and gnawed with his buckteeth upon the panther's neck.

Finally, two of them hurled themselves against the nearby fence and gave simultaneous kicks against the panther's head. Redness flashing across the big predator's face, he let out a pain-filled whine. He toppled to the ground as a pair of different rabbits continued covering his body with little punches.

As if on cue, a group of two more panthers flung open the door of a nearby shack with revolvers drawn. Yet Hastings had been standing there right beside the farmhouse's window. He smashed his rifle against the first feline's head and knocked the mammal right upon the nearby fence. The other panther, though, swung its limbs against the fox's head and managed to rip the rifle right from Hastings' tightly-gripping paws. Thinking quickly, Hastings grabbed the smashed flowerpot beside his legs and hurled it upon the panther's head.

That only seemed to make the feline angrier. Tossing the rifle to the side like a bad batch of rations, huge black paws shot through the air and clutched the sides of the fox's face. The straining panther attempted to crush Hastings' head into bloody pieces. The fox cried out in sheer desperation as his sweaty fur slipped right through the feline's grasp.

Yet the rabbits fighting all across the battlefield had their own problems— crumbling like warm pastries at the force of the defending predators, the injured little mammals lay about in various contorted shapes upon the ground. Seeing no help coming, the fox tried to dodge the panther as the big predator poised to attack. A meaty black paw snapped upon his neck and hoisted the fox's whole body straight up. Hastings couldn't let out another scream for help. He could barely even breathe.

The feline stuck out his claws and slashed them mercilessly upon Hastings' chest. Bits of cloth dripping with blood shot out into the air. Grinning from cheek to cheek, the attacking predator prepared to rip the fox's belly right open.

A split-second later, a flash of wool thrust out onto the panther's face. The feline immediately let go of the fox— who crumpled into a bleeding pile— and let out a growl of sheer rage. Hastings managed to look out and see a wave of brown fur going up the feline's midriff before hopping onto the big mammal's chest. A pair of gunshots sounded off.

The fox blinked. He shivered. When he finally took a good look at the scene, his heart beating frantically as he tried to stand back up, he witnessed the panther keeled over the nearby fence. Two bullet holes decorated the left cheek of the dead feline. A set of frantic-looking stab wounds stretched across the corpse's neck as well.

The fox immediately felt his stoat and ram companions grabbing him from both sides— the two mammals trying to their best to get him steady. Hastings managed to glance around the rest of the battle scene. He heard neither the sounds of gunfire nor the terrible grunts and groans of physical combat. Instead, the bodies of dead predators lied twisted around one bunny's corpse after another. Though pain racked across his body and overloaded his senses, the fox managed to count out one badly-injured wolf clinging to life, five dead panthers, and one useless machine gun. The attack had— on paper, at least— succeeded.

"God bless you both," Hastings murmured, his compatriots leading him into the nearby farmhouse. While thought after thought crowded every spare inch of his mind, keeping him awake, the burning pain across his slashed chest seemed to scream at him to simply pass out. Still able to limp if not walk, Hastings tried to focus himself on the broader purpose of why he'd run to that farmhouse in the first place. "And, dear God, let Leaps and Savage still be alive."

**[End of Chapter Two]**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading!
> 
> I recently wrote a piece focused on the World War II era. As I stated when I finished that piece, I'm fascinated by genealogical research and have wanted to incorporate material from that into my writings. I decided to shift things to the World War I era in order to cover additional ground and create something that features a bunch more semi-autobiographical references. I've rarely written things about battles and warfare, like I said before, so this remains somewhat of an experiment in that front. Thanks again for looking at this.
> 
> (I just want to make a little note here that I've revised the piece a tad since I first uploaded it.)


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